WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR), a senior member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, along with Senators Mike Braun (R-IN), Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and 17 other colleagues are seeking answers on the backlog of veterans’ record requests from the National Archives of the United States (NARA). Service records are often required to access critical government benefits and services, so ensuring requests are completed expeditiously is of utmost importance.

“We write to express our concern regarding reports of ongoing delays in constituents receiving their military service records from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC). As part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (P.L. 117-263), Congress passed the Access for Veterans to Records Act. This authorized $60 million for the National Archives and Records Administration to address the records backlog and improve response times for requests from veterans for their military service records,” wrote the senators to Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan.

“While we recognize and commend NARA for the significant strides it has made to address this backlog, we must ensure all incoming requests are still met with a timely response and that this does not occur again in the future,” the senators continued. 

The letter was cosigned by VA Committee Chairman Jon Tester (D-MT) and Ranking Member Jerry Moran (R-KS) in addition to Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), John Thune (R-SD), John Cornyn (R-TX), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Todd Young (R-IN), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Katie Britt (R-AL) and Rick Scott (R-FL).

Read the full letter below:

Dear Ms. Shogan:  

We write to express our concern regarding reports of ongoing delays in constituents receiving their military service records from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC). As part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (P.L. 117-263), Congress passed the Access for Veterans to Records Act. This authorized $60 million for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to address the records backlog and improve response times for requests from Veterans for their military service records.  

While we recognize and commend NARA for the significant strides it has made to address this backlog, we must ensure all incoming requests are still met with a timely response and that this does not occur again in the future. For the sake of our constituents, we kindly request NARA respond to the following questions by Monday, October 16, 2023.

1. What is the current total number of unanswered requests for military service records?

2. What is the current total number of overdue requests and how old is oldest request?

3. What is the makeup of the current overdue backlog? (i.e. DD214s, records other than DD214s, etc.)

4. What is the current average response time for a military service records request?

5. In February, NARA projected the backlog would be reduced to 84,500 cases by October 2023. Has NARA met this benchmark? Is NARA still on track to have fully eliminated the backlog by December 2, 2023?

6. How many military service records have been digitized since January 1, 2023? What percentage of records are left to be digitized?

7. What is the current expected timeline for completing the digitization of military service records?

8. What percentage of military service record requests have been received through eVetRecs since January 1, 2023? Of those, how many have been fully processed electronically?

9. How does the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions expedite responses to requests for separation documents? Is RPA currently being employed by NARA?

10. What is the status of the Case Management Reporting System (CMRS) modernization effort? Please provide the implementation timeline.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.